Quake III Arena

Google's DeepMind research division have made a pretty solid argument that the future of game AI is in self-teaching neural networks. Not content with destroying chess forever (credit to the BBC), their most recent project was to have a team of AI agents learn how to play a Quake 3-derived game of Capture The Flag from scratch. Not only did they master it, but after…

The best shooters endure. While the state of the art moves on in other genres and leaves old designs in the dust, it's as fun to fire a well-made shotgun from an early 90s FPS as from one released today. For that reason, this list runs the gamut from genre classics to those released in the last year. There's bound to be something for you…

I do not believe that I shall ever come to terms with the fact that Quake III's announcer was not, in fact, voiced by Michael Dorn. I believed that to be the case for so long, having been told it was so by someone at university. Watching this trailer for upcoming online shooter Quake Champions [official site], my heart leaped when I heard the familiar…

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time. Urban Terror was a Quake 3 mod that aimed to marry realistic weaponry and maps with the physics and speed of Quake 3, which made for both a strange anachronistic experience and also something that, in retrospect, resembles modern Call of Duty.

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time. Specifically, Quake III DM17: The Longest Yard, which is what I think of whenever I think of Quake III. Every Q3A player has their favourite map, and I'm not even making a claim to DM17 being the 'best' map, but it's my map.…

I learned to strafe-jump the hard way back when games were games, my keyboard made of broken glass, and my mouse an actual mouse biting my fingers as I clicked. I still welcome Quake Live adding an automated slower substitute. Everyone should get the experience the joys of zipping around like a rubber ball. Though exploiting wacky movement physics bugs is central to Quake in…

Remember the bit in Fight Club where Ed Norton is sitting on a plane and he explains to the guy sitting next to him his theory of “single-serving friends”? Well, something similar is true in multiplayer games.

Here at Rock, Paper, Shotgun we take the business of PC gaming entirely seriously. There is no smiling, or making rude noises at the back of class, there is only important gaming fact. So when it came to compiling an exhaustive list of the greatest, most important PC games of all time, we realised that the only way we could articulate the importance of the…

All that movement chatter brought to light that classic Quake 3 mod Urban Terror is now Urban Terror HD. It seems that the game, which I believe has been a kind of standalone mod for a couple of years now, thanks to ioquake3, will become a standalone Quake 3-licencee in its own right. It will however remain free-to-play and is going to continue to develop…

After eighteen months or so of beta, Quake Live has finally announced its subscription plans. You can still play for free, but you can also sign up for $1.99 a month, or $3.99 a month options (although these are "billed annually"), which give different levels of access the clan management systems, freeze tag, match stats, and so on. The full details are below the cut.…

Ten years. Ten piggin' years. And still no-one's topped Quake III: Arena in terms of raw, pure deathmatch FPS solidity and grace. Id's last great game turned a full decade old yesterday - even though it was born into an era of Voodoo 2s and 15" CRT monitors, it's fearsomely alive to this day. Frankly, it's not going anywhere any time soon - it lives…

Playing Quake Live is a troubling experience. It feels like a kind of monetised nostalgia. A browser-based themepark, or a visit to a mummified stately home. It's wonderful to find servers heaving with people again after all this time - even though finding a game was seldom a problem - at least for a quick and dirty free-for-all. I still adore Quake 3, and my…

If there's one area within gaming that I'm genuinely inclined to be unreasonable to the point irrationality, it's in the FPS deathmatch games - the Quake III / UT axis. For me Quake III was almost the only game worth playing. Quakeworld was a little too fast, UT too fat and feature-obese, and so on. Quake III was minimalist wonder, and what Id started was…

This isn't really news, or really even worth me posting, but I share it nonetheless. On a whim I just booted up Quake III and jumped on a public server. I used to play every night, for hours, but I'd not looked at it in a long, long time. As it happened there was a 3v3 CTF match going, so I joined in. Within moments…

Carmack has been interviewed about Quake Zero over on Gamesradar. For an old Quake III creature like me it was pretty satisfying to see the big man say this: Quake III Arena was always my personal favorite id Software game. It’s such a pure activity kind of game - more of a sport than a movie. And I’m excited to have this opportunity to bring…

Ole from Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe has written to tell us about their Quake III hack for a wraparound screen. The video is pretty impressive, and shows people deathmatching using the giant multi-projector contraption. Virtual Reality gaming without the funky headgear, anyone?

In an idle couple of hours earlier today I found myself reading the peerless architecture and urban speculation blog, BldgBlog. It's the kind of writing project that makes me sick with envy, and I can't wait to see Manaugh turn his ideas into book form in 2008. Anyway, one of Manaugh's recent posts was headed up by an image of the Chartres cathedral map from…